Shields had his gun in his hand, but he couldn't remember drawing it. He scanned the rest of the interior of the trailer, the muzzle tracking with his eyes. Nothing but bales of straw and horse feed. He hurried back to his patrol car, trying to keep his breakfast from coming back up.
"We've got them!" General Trollers exclaimed as he read the fax. "A Chicago cop found a rig with two bodies in it. Two brothers who'd been attending the reenactment. Both bodies were badly torn up."
"Where?" General Williams asked.
"The south side of Chicago, parked on the side of an interstate." He grabbed an atlas and thumbed through it, an expectant crowd looking over his shoulder. "Damn, they sure made it a long way." His finger rested on a blown-up map of Chicago. "Here — just before I-90 crosses I-55."
"Any sign of the Synbats themselves?" Hossey asked.
"No. The locals are treating it like a double murder."
Riley thought of his own home in the Bronx. He looked up at Colonel Hossey. "They're in the city."
The tent went silent for a minute as everyone realized the implication of the Synbats loose in a heavily populated area.
Trollers turned to Colonel Lewis. "Let's get some aircraft moving. We can get there in a couple of hours."
"And then what, sir?"
Trollers blinked at Riley's blunt interruption. "What do you mean?"
"What are you going to do when you get there, sir? You've got an urban jungle to look in. The Synbats have thousands of places to hide and millions of people to feed on. We've tried everything to find these things so far — dogs, helicopters, thermal sights, Spectre, vehicles, traps — and nothing has worked. What makes you think any of that will work now?"
Trollers threw back the challenge. "What do you suggest? Just leave them alone and let the pods initiate?"
"No, sir. I suggest we alert the local authorities about what the threat really is. We can't afford to keep it secret any longer." Riley gestured about him. "If you think we had a high body count here in this park, wait until they have some time in the middle of Chicago."
"We can't alert the local authorities." Trollers's voice was firm.
"We can't afford not to," Riley shot back. "The Synbats will be spotted sooner or later. Hopefully sooner. The longer they're out there, the more they'll kill. And once the pods activate — " Riley glanced at his watch — "which is right about now, we'll never be sure we got them all."
"Alerting the locals is unacceptable. We'll go up there ourselves and try to contain the problem. We'll tie into the local media and law enforcement, and at the first sight of the Synbats, we'll federalize the whole case."
Colonel Hossey shook his head. "That's illegal. Hell, even what we did here in the park is illegal. The Posse Comitatus Act forbids the use of federal troops in domestic action unless directly authorized by the president."
Lewis looked at Hossey as if the colonel had grown another head. "Get with it, man. Do you know what will happen if word of the Synbat project is leaked to the public, or even to the military affairs subcommittee in Congress?"
Lewis pointed a thick finger at Riley and Merrit. "You get your butts on up to Chicago ASAP. I'll have papers and ID waiting for you when you land. I'll make sure your cover is good. We have plans for things like this."
The pilot had the throttle wide open and the Blackhawk was shuddering along at 175 miles an hour. Riley sat in the back, uncomfortable in the civilian clothing he had rapidly donned prior to takeoff. A second Blackhawk would follow them in thirty minutes carrying Lewis, and would link up with the head police representative in Chicago. Riley and Merrit were going directly to the horse trailer.
Riley glanced across at Merrit, sitting in the jump seat opposite him. She hadn't said a word since they'd taken off. Riley had been considering the information Westland had given him for the past hour, and he finally leaned forward to talk to Merrit. "Do you think we'll find them?"
"Chicago's a terrible place to find creatures that don't want to be found," she said. "I'm worried about what will happen when they need to feed not only themselves but the embryos that do survive." Merrit shook her head. "The local authorities and the media should be alerted."
Riley had already fought that battle and lost. "I've worked in the military long enough and been on enough classified missions to know that many times the desire for security overrides common sense. Trollers's number-one concern is that word of this project doesn't leak out. He's already got a pretty substantial body count and the only thing he seems worried about is how he's going to cover it up. Nothing you or I say is going to change him on that."
"You can't give up that easily," Merrit pressed.
"Hey, I didn't create these things," Riley snapped. "And I'm not giving up. Why do you think I'm on this damn helicopter? I'm the garbageman who has to come around and clean up your mess. Two of my men have died so far doing that, and I don't want to lose any more. What do you want me to do? Go to the press? Walk up to whoever's meeting us in Chicago and say — 'Well, hey, you've got three genetically designed killing machines loose in your city and they just had a whole bunch of babies'."
Riley paused and took a deep breath, trying to control the rage that was pulsing through his veins. "It really doesn't matter much anyway, does it? At the rate they went through people in Land Between the Lakes, I have a feeling that your Synbats are going to be front-page news rather quickly."
Merrit's eyes flashed at Riley's last sentence. "They're not mine!"
"Hey, you made them," Riley pressed, watching her carefully.
"I was wrong to go along with what they wanted." She began to cry. "I'll pay for it. I will pay for it."
"Hey," Riley said, grabbing her shoulder. "Take it easy. We'll get them."
"It's already too late," she said, the words blown away by the whine of the turbine engines.
Riley leaned back in the web seat and rubbed his eyes. He was tired and troubled, not only about what had happened and was going to happen, but about deeper issues.
"We'll be landing in two minutes," the pilot announced over the intercom.
Riley shook his head and looked out the window. The skyscrapers of downtown Chicago loomed to the immediate north. Urban sprawl extended as far as the eye could see. Somewhere out there were the Synbats. They could be anywhere.
A police officer stood in the parking lot, directing them down. Riley could see several police cars parked around a semi with a trailer. The pilot landed on the indicated spot.
Riley leaned over and grabbed Merrit, rousing her. "Let's go!"
She looked out the door and didn't move.
"Come on," Riley yelled. "Let's move it."
She slowly got to her feet and followed him off the aircraft.
A hard-looking man with a high and tight haircut and wearing a rumpled suit was waiting for them. "I'm Sergeant Scott."
Riley extended his hand. "Special Agent Riley, and this is Doctor Merrit."
Scott nodded. "The lieutenant's waiting for you by the trailer."
"I thought it was found next to the interstate," Riley commented as they walked over.
Scott laughed. "Yeah, it was, but we had to move it. You fuck with rush-hour traffic, you fuck with the city. We towed it over here. We got photos, and forensics went all over the site, so don't sweat it. The lieutenant can show you all that stuff."